Different Path Entirely
by giveupthecake
Summary: We all know the story of Bleach. But where is that AU where Ichigo is a hollow, Ishida is the main character, and Ichigo doesn't even become part of the story until the Soul Society invasion arc? That AU is right here. First story so be nice, rated M for future chapters, pairings undecided for now.
1. Chapter 1

_ This is my first fan fiction ever, so cut me a little slack if the plot holes are baringly obvious. __**I do not own Bleach**__, I do however own an awsome pair of red oants with a white skull pattern. I'm only a passive fan of Bleach, but the idea for this story was bouncing around in my head and I couldn't write my own book until I got this story out of the way. The gist of the story is this: Ichigo was never involved in the whole affair of the story at all. In fact, he isn't even a Kurosaki, he's just some random soul that became a hollow a shit ton of years ago. Because he never existed, Isshin is still married because of this and Karin and Yuzu have a loving family. When Rukia was attacked by the hollow, instead of giving up her powers to a human, a very familiar Quincy was there to save her. Why you might ask? Because his grandfather is still alive and training Ishida. Ishida, Chad, and Orihime are friends in this story, linked together by a common bond of sending hollows to the great beyond. With Rukia in Karakura, they also befriend her. Important note, because Ishida's grandfather is alive he found a way to manipulate quincy reiatsu so that quincy arrows do not eliminate hollows, and instead purifies them like a shingami's zanpakuto, this means that the current shingami have no reason to hate quincies. Also, the grandfather living means that Ishida has greater quincy training. The non-existence of Ichigo means that Aizen had to frame charges of Kaien's death onto Rukia as a murder, and that is why she is taken away by Byakuya and Renji. As for Ichigo... he's something else, and we'll see that very soon. Our story starts as (Timeline wise) with Ishida and co. going through the senkaimon to save Rukia. Forgive my poor brain and let my madness begin._

XoXoXoX

'Hueco Mundo sucks.' This was the oft repeated thought of the arrancar standing on a solitary rock amist the dunes of Hueco Mundo.  
This figure cold be described as downright abnormal compared to the norms of hollows and shinigami alike. He was dirty for one thing. He wore a shinigami's shihakushō but it was torn badly and streaked with dirt, sand, and blood.

He didn't wear a shirt, instead he wrapped his torso in bandages, with a parting in the middle of his chest so that his hollow hole was clear to anyone looking at him. His pants were dark red with white skull patterns crudely sown onto them, the pants appeared to be silk, but in reality it was made from hollow skin the arrancar had gained by skinning his food alive.

His mask was also different from his fellow arrancar, not that he knew this. His mask was completely whole and was not broken at all. It had the appearance of a human skull with three red stripes below his right eye.  
The arrancar's yellow eyes continued to scan the desert in front of him in a vain hope that there was something waiting for him out there to break him out of his monotony. Alas, there was nothing.

He let out a big sigh and looked to the ever present moon of the Hueco Mundo landscape. His boredom had reached a peak. He was so bored that he was starting to remember his past.

When he has first died he became a hollow and lost his memories of his life, that was normal. He had ate his fellow hollows and became a Gillian, that was normal. He had continued to consume his bretheren and evolved into an Adjuchas, normally. His hunger led him to an underground forest of some kind, where he encountered other Adjuchas and over time he had eaten enough of them where he could evolve into the final stage of Menos evolution and became a legendary Vasto Lorde.

One of only six in all of existence! Then he hit a dead end. His powers continued to grow, but there was no further evolution beyond being a Vasto Lorde, thus there was no point. He became bored, he seemed out other hollows to fight him and beat all of them without difficulty. He considered leaving Hueco Mundo and attacking the shinigami in their Soul Society, but hen he heard an interesting rumor. There was a different kind of hollow, by removing their mask he heard that hollows could gain shinigami powers.

He was ecstatic when he heard this, and immediately attempted smashing his mask on a nearby rock. All of his efforts was in vain however as his constant consumption of hollows after he had become a Vasto Lorde had reinforced his bodies to rediculous levels of durability. Even his mask, which was usually a hollow's weak spot, was harder than the rock he used to try and break it. No matter what he tried, nothing could break his mask, not even the cero that he forced another Vasto Lorde, the king of Las Noches himself, to fire at him could even scratch his mask.

He had resigned himself that he would never become an arrancar and was preparing to find shinigamis to fight, when he experienced the shock of his afterlife when he discovered a shinigami surviving in the Menos Forest.

He had observed the shinigami for several days, thinking that if he knew how they acted, it would be easier for him to obtain their power. He was following the hollow one day when the shinigami arrives in a small clearing in the forest. There were several graves and the shinigami approached them and bowed his head in respect torwards the graves, leaving himself wide open for attacks. The Vasto Lorde took this as an oppurtunity, and used his excellent speed to push himself forward, revealing his reiatsu. It was too late for the shinigami however because he sensed the incoming hollow and did not have an oppurtunity to react before he was pinned to the ground and separated from his zanpakuto.  
Then he saw his attacker and resolved himself to join his comrades as his death was imenent. He was looking at a human shaped hollow, with pure while skin, tiffs of grey fur around his neck and wrists, and a horrifying horned skull mask drilling a hole through his head with it's piercing gaze. This appearance, along with the accompanying large reiatsu meant he was facing a Vasto Lorde.

He closed his eyes and prepared for the end. He waited for his death, but it never came.

Cautiously, he cracked his eyes open and saw that the hollow was analyzing him. Suddenly it let out a noise like a cat being rubbed against a chainsaw. Realizing that the hollow was clearing it's throat to talk the hollow spoke with the strange echoing tone that all hollows possessed.

**"This is embarrassing, but do you think you could do me a favor. If you help me out, I might let you live bro."**

The hollow looked at him expectingly and the shinigami realized that he was supposed to reply. He swallowed nervously.

"Uh... How can I help?"

The hollow didn't hesitate and took his foot of of the shinigami letting him pick himself up, and through his sword back to him. The hollow and the shinigami rationalized that the hollow was more than strong enough to kill the shinigami whenever he pleased.

The hollow spoke again. **"I'm not going to beat around the bush. I hate you and your guts, but I need you alive so I can obtain my goal. I want to become an arrancar, the only way to do so is for a hollow to have their mask removed, but I'm so damn durable that I can't rip my mask off. Nothing I've tried, including multiple ceros by Menos class hollows, has managed to put a dent in me at all. So here is what is going to go down here, your going to tell me how to get shinigami powers, and if it works, I'll let you go and you won't ever see me again, if it doesn't work, well..."**

The hollow picked up a random bone laying on the forest floor with his clawed hand and put it into his mouth.

*CRUNCH*

The shinigami nodded in grim acknowledgement that if he didn't give this hollow the power that it desired, then his life was forfeit. He closed his eyes and focused, thinking of every way he could for ways that beings gained shinigami powers. He snapped his fingers, he had it!

"There is only one way I could think of that would work for you Vasto Lorde. You must enter a state of meditation and enter your inner world, from there, you must find some way to create a zanpakuto spirit that will contain and repress your power as an arrancar.

The hollow was not one to waste time, he sat down and crossed his legs right where he stood. He rested his hands on his knees and closed his eyes, unafraid of the shinigami in front of him or what nearby hollows could do to him while he was in his inner world.

The shinigami wasted no time as well and quickly ran away from the powerful Menos.

Menos in question didn't move a muscle as he sensed the shinigami booking it away at top speeds. He was too focused on reaching his "inner world" and creating his zanpakuto. He must have sat in the same place for several days, during which he was attacked many times by hollows, but not once did one manage to breach his defenses.

One minute he was breathing in and out with his eyes closed while focusing, the next, he was back in the deserts of Heuco Mundo. Thinking that the meditation didn't work and preparing to hunt down and kill the shinigami, it took him several moments to realize he had succeeded.  
He let out a loud roar of happiness as he realized that the entire desert was sideways, with the pairing sand entering a giant crater, with what looked liked the ruins of skyscrapers poking out from beneath the sand. The landscape itself seemed oddly familiar to the hollow, but he felt at peace for the first time that he could remember. For the first time since he had died, the hollow relaxed.

He didn't move for several minutes, merely observing the beauty of the landscape of his inner world. He did not fail to notice the grinding noise behind him however and turned around to see what was disturbing his moment of inner peace.

In the air behind him was a spinning distortion. It was like a black hole, except that instead of sucking everything into it, it expelled light and noise. Now the hollow wasn't a fool, he wasn't going to just approach an anomaly like this for no good reason. He did resolve to approach it however when he saw a hilt of some weapon poking out of the middle of the swirling air.

Seeing that there was no reason for him to not grab the hilt, he reached forward, and grasped the hilt. There was a flash of light, accompanied by a searing pain across his entire body.

It took him awhile for him to realize that he was asleep. When he woke up, he had a pounding headache. Reaching his hands up to his head to support it, he saw pale human hands. At first he just started at them. Then he started laughing.

He had done it, he had become an arrancar. Looking around he spotted his own zanpakuto. Zanpakuto were rumored to all be katanas in some form or shape, but his was different. It had no hilt and was as long as he was tall. It was black with a silver edge and pure white bandages wrapped around the handle so that his zanpakuto had some form of grip.

'This is going to be useful.' He thought as he had a very important revalation. While he now had a human shape, his hallow mask was still whole and probably most important, he was buck naked.

He wasted no time and started ripping the wrappings from his zanpakuto off and began wrapping the bandages around his body to cover his nakedness. Thinking frantically and realizing that his pride as a powerful hollow was on the line, he knew what he had to do.

The shinigami was easy to find, as his reiatsu stuck out in Hueco Mundo like a sore thumb. He landed in front of the shinigami and stopped him in his tracks. The awkwardness of having someone half naked in front of them was not lost on the shinigami as he averted his eyes, giving the new arrancar enough time to hit him on his temple, rendering him briefly incapacitated. The new arrancar began ripping bandages off of his sword and throwing them on top of the shinigami. He then removed the shinigami's shihakushō. He put it on, finding it to be a little small for him and inadvertently ripping it in the process. He then leaned down next to the shinigami, and spoke his first words as an arrancar, discovering in the process he had a sense of humor.

"You've been owned by Ichigo shinigami!" With that, Ichigo sped off to the exit of the Menos Forest, so he could mercilessly skin some hollows and make himself some pants. He wasn't going to go around naked. That just wasn't how he rolled.

Ichigo's walk down memory lane ended and he sighed, realizing that at this moment, he only had two options to move forward from here.

Option one was him going to Las Noches and joint that army of hollows that that feak shinigami Souske Aizen was building so he could overthrow the Spirit King and make hollows equal if not greater than the shinigami. Ichigo thought that sounded like a cubic ton of shit. He wasn't about to sell his soul to a soul reaper for no personal gain whatsoever. He was thankful he hadn't been approached by any of the arrancar in Las Noches or heaven forbid, Aizen himself.

That left Ichigo with option two. He didn't entirely like the sound of option two, but option one wasn't even an option.

Option two consisted of him going to the Livng World for the first time. As he saw it, he had eaten so many hollows, became a Vasto Lorde, became an arrancar, made some kickass pants made from the bodies of his enimies, and now he had nothing else to do.

If he went to the living world than he would have to deal with shinigami, crazy humans he had heard of that had powers, and cats. Ichigo hated cats with a dark fury. There wasn't any real reason, it's just that they annoyed him to no end, it was as if every cat hollow he had come across was endlessly mocking him.

He took one last look at the landscape that had allowed him to rise to power. He picked up his trusty cleaver, and traced it on the ground, opening a vertical gargantua on the ground.  
The reason he opened a vertical gargantua was because he had piss poor reiatsu control and knew that he had to form a path in order to traverse the void between Hueco Mundo and the Living World. If there was a vertical gargantua than all he had to worry about was landing, which he was sure he could handle.

Not worrying about the future, Ichigo the arrancar jumped into the swirling dark portal, not knowing that his destination was in front a certain candy store owned by a Urahara Kisuke.

XoXoXoX

With a slam, the senkaimon closed and Ishida, Chad, Orihime, and Yoruichi were in the Precipice world, valiantly heading to Soul Society so they could rescue their crown Rukia, leaving Urahara alone in his shop while Tessai, Jinta, and Ururu were out getting the shop's supplies from their special source, they would be gone for several days.

Urahara snapped his fan open and began waving it in front of his face. If everything went according to plan, Aizen wouldn't suspect a Quincy among the ryoka, and Ishida would be able to put an arrow through that evil man's heart. Urahara's only regret was that he had discovered Aizen's plan sooner and was able to remove the hogyuku from Rukia's gigai. Water under the bridge however.

Urahara was broken out of his mental ramblings very suddenly. He had detected a gargantua opening in front of his shop. He shunpoed to the front of the shop expecting the gargantua to be facing his shop, much to his surprise however, the dark portal was 50 feet in the air, facing straight down. Then he detected the reiatsu of the hollow coming through and prepared Benihime, the large amount of reiatsu he detected could only have belonged to a powerful Vasto Lorde.

When a Vasto Lorde appeared, Soul Society always sent three captains to ensure that the powerful Menos was purified. Vasto Lordes were so powerful, that back when Urahara was still a captain, he had research indicating that if ten Vasto Lordes were to attack Soul Society, then it would be similar to if the soutaichou released his bankai. The reiatsu in the air would turn dangerous and destroy the entire dimension, let alone the damages the Vasto Lordes themselves would cause.

Not willing to take any chances with such a potentially dangerous opponent, Urahara prepared his Kidō. However, the "simple" shop keeper was not prepared for what came out of the portal.

Shooting out of the gargantua, a dark shape came out and … hit the ground at top speeds, leaving an impressive crater. Urahara sweatdropped and watched as the dust cleared.

It revealed what at first appeared it be a very scruffy orange haired teenager, but Urahara was startled when he saw the mask covering the teens entire face. That, along with the bloodstains and the hollow hole indicated that he was looking at an arrancar.

The hollow was laying on his back, seemingly unconscious, when he sat up very quickly. He patted himself all over seemingly making sure that he was intact, then he pumped his arms in the air and screamed "I'm alive! Whooo! Not even falling for hours on end can keep this hollow down! I'm alive world!" Then he looked around. He saw Urahara standing there watching him. He looked him over and then spoke "Cool hat dude. Have you seen my sword?"

The gargantua, which was still open at this point, spat something out at top speeds and then finally closed. Both Urahara and the arrancar watched as the object fell to earth, spinning in graceful arcs cutting through the air, before landing right between the arrancar's legs, less than half an inch away from castrating him.

The arrancar watched the quivering cleaver until it stopped shaking. He then turned his head to Urahara. In a slightly nervous voice he spoke "Y-y-you s-saw that … right."

Urahara snapped his fan open and nodded his head. The arrancar looked at the cleaver. "I thought so."

The shop keeper and the arrancar stood in silence. Looking at the cleaver's point of impact, Urahara finally deemed it was appropriate to speak. "You look like you're tired arrancar-san. May I offer you some tea inside."

The arrancar didn't miss a beat "What kind of tea?"

"I believe I have some nice green tea. Is that good enough?"

Behind his mask the arrancar smiled. "Perfect."

XoXoXoX

Urahara watched, trying to mask his curiosity wondering how the arrancar was going to drink his tea with that mask of his covering his entire face. The hollow brought the cup up to his mask, waving the cup in front of him he breathed in the aroma. Sighing with satisfaction, he began bringing the cup to his mask, he was just about to clink the cup against his mask when he stopped. He looked over Urahara's shoulder and pointed. "What is that?"

Urahara looked to see what could have caught the arrancar's attention. Failing to see anything of particular importance however he turned back … only to see the cup of tea entirely empty.

The arrancar nodded his head in satisfaction to the disappointed shop keeper. "Thank very much mister cool hat. I'm afraid I've been a bad guest however, I've failed to introduce myself. I'm Ichigo, arrancar."

Urahara nodded, partially satisfied with having a name to the face, err, mask. He introduced himself, "I'm just a humble shop keeper in this town, you may call me Urahara. Urahara Kisuke. Now this may seem sudden, but I am immensely curious why a hollow such as yourself would visit this humble town."

Ichigo nodded in understanding. "I can understand that then the reason for me coming here, to this specific town is…" Urahara leaned closed "very important…" Urahara leaned even closer "it is…" Urahara was pieaning over the table at this point "because I was bored, wanted something to do, and opened up a gargantua that took me to a completely random location."

Urahara couldn't help it. He facefaulted, hard. Getting up, Ichigo was laughing at him shamelessly. "That's not very nice Ichigo-kun. Getting my expectations risen like that."

"What did you expect? I am a hollow after all, and even if you try to say that your just a shop keeper, I can smell that you are definitely a shinigami … with an awesome hat."

"At least someone appreciates it..." Urahara mumbled. "Anyways," Urahara let the fan drop so Ichigo could see his serious face. "if you know that I'm a shingami, then you know that I need to know about you, and your real intentions here. It is my duty."

Ichigo stared at Urahara before speaking. "Okay then. Everything about me. I lived a short life I think, I died really young. I became a hollow. After that I became a Gillian, and I continued through my hollow evolution until I became a Vasto Lorde. Then, I kicked around for a couple of years continuing to consume hollows and growing tons more powerful because I had no real goals. Then I heard about arrancar. I decided I wanted to become one right then and there, but I couldn't because all the extra hollows I'd eaten as a Vasto Lorde made me rediculously durable, and I couldn't find a way to break the mask. I eventually found a way to become an arrancar through meditation, but as you can see, my mask is so tough that it is still whole. Then I made myself some kickass pants," here he gestured torwards them "and I came to a dead end. I didn't know what to do from there, as I had reached the pinacle of what my power could be at that moment. I the found two options I could do. I could join the shinigami Aizen Souske and his army of arrancar and overthrow the Spirit King, or I could go to the Living World and find some reason to continue my existence which up till right now, has consisted of me doing nothing but tearing apart and eating hollows. I didn't want to become a slave to a deranged soul reaper, so I came here to the living world, where this far I've almost been castrated y my own zanpakuto, and drank some delicious tea with one of the shinigami that I've been trying to avoid. Does that answer your concerns and may I go now?"

Urahara looked at Ichigo with a blank look on his face. Ichigo thought he had passed out because he wasn't moving at all, even when he waved his hand in front of his face. Urahara looked right at Ichigo before he could get up and leave however.

"A WHAT ARMY?"

**_(A/N): You probably saw this coming so no big surprise there. Leave some constructive criticism, slang, ideas, or share the love in a review please. I'll try to pump out another chapter by tomorrow. If this gets even semi popular, you can expect much more of this over the summer._**


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm not going to sugar coat it. I dun goofed up with the last chapter. I had a lot of spelling mistakes despite me using a spellchecker and some of the words were auto corrected into words that didn't make sense. All of that is technical difficulties, and I will get that sorted out soon. I do not own Bleach.**

XoXoXoX

Panicked was not a word that Urahara used to describe himself, ever, pretty much. Sometimes he was unpleasantly surprised, or taken off guard. But he would recover and fix the problem. What the arrancar in front of him was saying, about Aizen building an army in Hueco Mundo, that made him panic.

Urahara had built up a character profile of how he expected his nemesis Aizen to act. Aizen fell in the category of shinigami that hated hollows with a passion. Aizen building an army of hollows in Hueco Mundo didn't fit Urahara's profile at all and this meant that he didn't have a plan for this.

With his mind still raceing, Urahara was frantically making and discarding plans so that he could find a way to counter this new development.

Meanwhile, Ichigo was looking at what Urahara had for sale in his shop. Most of it looked like candy, but after he broke the lock on the door leading to the back he found a lot more interesting stuff. He picked up a red glove with a flaming skull on it and smelled it. Based on its reiatsu, he guessed that it could push a soul out of it's body. Interesting but not especially useful, Ichigo put it back on the shelf and continued his exploring.

It was slightly harder to brake the lock on the second door. This room appeared to be a sleeping quarters of some kind, probably the shopkeeper's. It was sparsely decorated, with potted plants here and there, but nothing caught his attention until he saw a picture on a high shelf.

The picture depicted Urahara, with what appeared to be midget shinigami girl, a giant mexican teen, a orange haired girl with D-cups, and a tall pencil thin nerd wearing glasses and a white cape with stylized blue crosses.

Ichigo was going to dismiss the photo, when he took a second look and something caught his breath. It was their expressions. All of the people in this photo were smiling.

On some basic level this disturbed Ichigo. How could they be smiling? They seemed relaxed, and … even seemed to enjoy each others company.

Gears were seemingly grinding together in Ichigo's head. It was like a complicated math problem for him: _other people + unknown = happiness + satisfaction._

Ichigo wanted some of that. The kids in the photo appeared whole, as if their life's were fulfilled and they had nothing to worry about. Ichigo clutched the photo and walked out of the room.

Urahara was broken out of his brainstorming by someone tapping his shoulder. He jumped and turned around to see the hollow he had invited into his shop holding a photo of him with Uryū and his friends and pointing at it animatedly.

"I want this." Was all Ichigo said, thinking that the shopkeeper would understand what he was trying to say.

Confused, Urahara replied, "What do you mean Hollow-kun?"

Ichigo snorted, "Theses guys have what I'm looking for and I want what they got, isn't that obvious? What do I have to do to have what they have, I'll do just about anything, just tell me!"

Urahara still didn't seem to understand, so Ichigo rolled his eyes and clarified for him "I want to be happy like they are in this picture."

Understanding dawned on Urahara. Hollows ate souls in an attempt to fill the void in their hearts they gained upon dying with unfulfilled desires. By consuming souls they hoped to fill their hearts so that they could have the satisfaction of being whole that they so desperately looked for. As a hollow evolved, their desire to became whole just grew and grew instead of diminishing, while he was still a captain, Urahara theorized that only the most powerful of Vasto Lordes didn't possess a hollows trademark hunger, and that was only because a they were satisfied with having become as powerful as they had.

It seemed to Urahara that Ichigo had evolved into a Vasto Lorde, and was not yet satisfied, so he became an arrancar hoping that an increase in power would make him happy, but it did not, so he grew bored and subconsciously led himself to seek out something that could fill the void in his soul.

Ideas clicked together in his head, and Urahara smirked. He could use this to his advantage and find a way to take down Aizen. Before he did that however, he had to take care of this arrancar.

Urahara snapped his fan open again and switched from "mad shingami scientist mode" to "crazy powerful friendly shopkeeper mode".

"Of course you can be happy like Ishida and his friends hollow-kun!" Ichigo let out a sigh of relief. "However," Urahara continued causing Ichigo to tense up "there will be several things you must do in order for this to work."

"What do I have to do?" Ichigo questioned cautiously while setting the photo down.

"Mmmm, not too much." Urahara began looking Ichigo up and down "Does your mask come off Ichigo?"

"Uhh, no. My mask is really hard, and its never even been cracked, so it doesn't move at all." Ichigo replied awkwardly, surprised by such a sudden question, "Why do you ask?"

"One of the things you need will be a gigai, or an artificial body, so that you have some physical form. I can make one for you, but it would help if I knew what your face looked like. Would you mind if I made it so your gigai had a mask attached to it as well?"

Ichigo shrugged, indicating that he really didn't care. Then he snapped his fingers "Make sure that my gigai has my awesome pants though. I made these myself and I want to make sure that everyone knows how cool they are."

Urahara nodded in complete understanding, fingering his hat lightly. "You will also need to have a very specific diet hollow-kun." Seeing Ichigo cock his head to the side in confusion he elaborated "It wouldn't be right at all if I allowed you to go around and eat living souls left and right, so if you want to stay here and obtain your goal, you must eat only hollows." Seeing that Ichigo agreed Urahara continued "We also need to do something about your level of power."

"What do you mean?"

Urahara explained "When shinigami with captain class reiatsu come to the living world, they have power limiters placed on them so that the reiatsu they release does not cause harm to any living souls. You seem to be repressing your reiatsu rather well, but if you slip up, human lives will be in danger. Also," Urahara continued, "your reiatsu is a dead giveaway to Soul Society that there is a Menos class hollow in Karakura Town, and I'm guessing that you don't want to have to deal with captains coming after you." Urahara said the last bit with a smile, sending shivers down Ichigo's spine.

"What do you get out of all this?" the hollow questioned.

Urahara laughed. "I'm not doing all this for free! Heavens no!" He smiled evilly at Ichigo, "The gigai, not to mention the limiters you need, aren't cheap. Your going to have to work off the debt that you will accumulate, and best of all, you will work for me to do so!"

Ichigo shifted uncomfortably. "What kind of work are we talking about here?"

"Not much, I just need you to do... paperwork, inventory, heavy lifting, dealing with customers, babysitting, exterminating hollows, cataloging, more paperwork, fighting alongside Soul Society against Aizen, even more paperwork, looking for new products for the shop, taking care of cats, assisting with target practice, laughing at my jokes, convincing certain vizards to go along with my plan, painting advertising to attract customers to the shop, and finally, continuing to call me cool hat guy when in the presence of certain individuals."

Ichigo was stunned, then he looked at Urahara with could best be described as a brief moment of fury. Expecting Ichigo to call him out on making him work with shinigamis if he agreed, Urahara braced himself for the worst, what happened however…

"I hate cats. I absolutely refuse if I have to take care of cats. Get rid of that condition and I agree, otherwise I'm out of here."

Urahara was dumbfounded. "Your okay working with shinigami?"

Ichigo nodded his head. "Don't get me wrong, I do hate shinigami. I only hate them because they'll try to kill me seven ways from Sunday, it's completely different if I'm working with them. If I'm working with them they won't try to kill me, so I won't have any reason to hate them. It's pretty simple. I hate cats unconditionally though and don't want to have to take care of them."

Urahara smiled behind his fan. This was perfect. He held out his hand to seal the deal. "I think that can be arranged employee-Ichigo. Congratulations on gaining employment at Urahara's Shop."

Ichigo shook his hand and nodded thankfully. Then he let out a giant yawn, traversing between the spiritual void vertically had taken a lot out of him and made him tired. He got up and nodded his head aprreciatively. He started walking out "Thank you cool-hat dude. I'm beat, so I'm going to find a tree somewhere to crash in. See ya tomorrow for work."

Urahara nodded and watched as his new employee left. When he walked out he got up and started moving quickly. If he wanted to have the gigai finished by tomorrow he needed to move fast. He practically giggled thinking of what was to come.

He went into his back room and gathered the necessary tools. Leaning over his workbench he began his work.

XoXoXoX

The next day, Urahara could barely contain his excitement. With the arrancar working for him, he would get leverage over Aizen's army, and if he smudged a couple of details, he could tell the vizards that they had a new potential recruit, thus he could discovers where their hideout was. Not that he didn't know the general location of course.

Ichigo made it into the shop around 10 o'clock in the morning. In Urahara's personal opinion, he looked like shit. His clothes were much worse looking, even more dirty and torn then they were before. It also looked like he had a tire track running down his face.

Seeing Urahara looking at him he clarified "I found a nice tree to sleep in. It was high off the ground and was at the top of a hill so I had a nice view. Unfortunately for me, this ment that when I turned over in my sleep then I rolled over 50 feet downhill through shrubs that tore my clothes apart and onto a roadway where I got hit by a semi truck… I don't have the best of luck when falling asleep."

Urahara didn't even try to understand and just Ahhed in acknowledgement. Wasting no time, he beckoned Ichigo into the back room. There was a high metallic table with a white sheet over it, covering what appeared to be a body.

With a lot of zest, Urahara pulled the sheet aside, revealing to Ichigo… Ichigo. His gigai looked just like him with three key differences. His hollow hole was gone. He was wearing normal human clothes. And his mask, instead of just being fused to his face, was held in place by a series of straps and buckles. Looking it over for issues, there weren't any, and Ichigo approved.

Before Ichigo could step into his gigai, Urahara stopped him and handed him a paper bag. Opening it up, Ichigo found a strip of white bandages, like the ones he wore instead of a shirt, and a bird skull necklace with leather ties. Ichigo looked up and gave his employer the "look".

"Listen, I don't even want to know what creepy satanic bullshit you're into. But for the love of god, count me out of it."

Confused Urahara said "What do you mean?"

"Seriously, bird skulls rate at least a 8.5 on the creepy scale. If you want me to wear this then I assume that if I do, I'll be forced into some demonic contract, and I'll have to do whatever you say, which isn't really that different from me working for you normally, but it will be demonic!" Ichigo crossed his arms and lay the bag on the table next to his gigai.

Urahara didn't understand what Ichigo was trying to say but he clarified what he had handed to him. "The bandages I gave you will serve as the limiters we discussed yesterday. The necklace is a very special invention of mine however. Do you notice the color of the skull?" Ichigo looked in the bag again to see that the skull was yellow. "If the skull is white, your normal reiatsu will be released from you. However, if the skull is yellow, like it is now, than your hollow reiatsu will be detected as human, albeit with streaks of hollow reiatsu in it. This will help you blend in with the more spiritually aware occupants of Karakura Town. You can change the necklace's color by pumping a little bit of your reiatsu into it."

Ichigo sheepishly apologized and wrapped the limiter around his upper left arm and put the necklace on. He leaned his cleaver in the corner, and lay on top of the table. He entered the gigai and slowly got up off the table.

He found his center of gravity and got up on his feet. He turned torwards Urahara and saluted "Reporting for duty Mr. Cool-Hat Dude. I'm ready for anything."

Happy to have an employee actually happy to do what he said for once, Urahara told Ichigo what he had planned, "Your going to do something new Ichigo. Something that you've never done before."

"I'm up for trying just about anything, except for gay sex and rape, at least once."

Sweatdropping, Urahara continued, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take that backpack," Urahara pointed torwards a giant hiking pack larger than Ichigo "and set up a food stand at the local high school. You will then man said food stand and sell the stand's product to the student body there, you must set up the stall before the student's lunch time. On top of that, if a hollow gets within school grounds, you are to take care of it, so that the hollow can't take a bite out of the spiritually aware teens there."

Ichigo nodded and then waited, trying to get Urahara's attention. "What is it?"

"I don't know the way to the high school your talking about."

"Check the uppermost left pocket on the bag, you'll find a map with my recommended route highlighted."

Accepting that his first job was going to be him selling food to teens, Ichigo picked up the giant hiking pack (with no difficulty whatsoever even with the bag waging over a ton), shoved his zanpakuto into it, and started jogging to the school knowing that he had to make it there before lunch started.

XoXoXoX

Tatsuki let out a sigh of relief as the lunch bell rang and she got released from English and her class could finally get some food. It was especially bad in class today with Keigo thinking he knew how to speak English and he screamed out loud for the entire school to hear "I shan eatz yoess vocabulari!", he embarrassed the entire class, including the teacher and had to be escorted out. What made it worse was that Uyrū, Orihime, and Chad were all gone today even though school was still going **(A/N: Pretty sure this deviates from cannon but not 100%.)** and they couldn't balance out Keigo's weirdness. Even the new exchange student Rukia was gone, and the weird part was that whenever Tatsuki mentioned her to anyone, they didn't seem to know what she was talking about and looked at her like she as crazy.

She pushed those thoughts to the side however as getting something to eat right now was much more important. She woke up late and didn't have a chance to eat breakfast, then she forgot to grab the lunch she had prepared for herself last night, so she was practically starving. Thanking god that she had money to spend on food, she stepped off of school grounds and looked around for a good restaurant or a food stall to eat at.

Other students seemed to have has the same idea as her and they were also looking for somewhere to eat. Tatsuki didn't want to eat with complete strangers, so she started looking for a food stand that didn't have a lot of customers. She lucked out when she saw a simple sandwich stall that didn't appear to have any customers right across the street from the school.

She walked right up to it and saw that the orange haired teenager running the stall had his back turned torwards her. She coughed to get his attention and her eyes widened slightly in shock when she saw him.

She couldn't see his face. All of it was covered by a horrifying white skull mask with the only color being three red stripes beneath one eye. And his eyes, his eyes didn't have normal coloring to them, instead, his eyes were pure obsidian black with bright yellow irises.

She was about to turn around and get away from this creep, then she heard his voice. It was warm and friendly, instead of creepy and cold like she imagined to be. He simply said, "Hello valued customer to Urahara's Shop: Sandwich branch division. How may I serve you today."

His friendly introduction was apparently all that Tatsuki needed to confirm that this guy wasn't going to drag her into an ally and kill her while she tried to order.

"Umm… this is the first time I've heard of this place so I don't know what to order. What do you suggest?"

The teen seemed appreciative that she hadn't fan away screaming so he replied "I don't know about those othe guys," he gestured to the stalls the other students were eating at "but at this stall we have a dream. A dream that every valuable customer, like yourself, deserves to eat the kind of sandwich that they ask for exactly the way they asked for it. That means that all you need to do is tell me what you want to eat and I will whip it right up for you."

"If you'll make anything, I want three egg salad sandwiches."

The masked man nodded his head and got to work preparing Tatsuki's lunch. While he was doing this, Tatsuki watched him and tried to place exactly where she had seen the type of mask he was wearing before. Then she remembered.

For the last couple of weeks, she had noticed Ishida and Rukia leaving the classroom abruptly and dashing outside. She watched them, and was amazed the first couple of times when she saw them fighting giant masked monsters right in front of the school, Ishida using a glowing bow and arrows, and Rukia shooting fireballs and using a katana. None of the other students seemed to see them doing it however and she never brought it up with anybody because of it. This guy seemed to wear exactly the same kind of mask that the monsters Ishida and Rukia fought however.

While Tatsuki was thinking the guy finished making her three sandwiches and handed them to her once he wrapped them up. "Thank you for you business, that will be 57000 yen please."

Tatsuki's jaw dropped. "What's with this price! It's rediculous!"

The man looked at her with what Tatsuki could only guess was surprise, she couldn't tell with the mask on, and replied "I'm not from around here and I don't exactly know how much stuff costs, my boss didn't say how I should price the food however. I heard that you can't buy anything at all for a single yen, so I added generously to the price of all the food I sell here."

Tatsuki changed her mind. The reason no one was getting there food here wasn't because the guy running the stall wore a creepy mask, it was because all of the food was rediculously overpriced. She grabbed the guy by his collar and brought him right up to her face.

"Listen, I don't care about your creepy eyes,"  
"I have a condition."  
"or the creepy mask you wear,"  
"It's part of my native culture."  
"you charging that much yen for some sandwiches however. That's compleatly inexcusable, when I let you go, your going to tell me your name, apologize for even considering making pay that much for food, and go back to your suck-ass boss and freaking ask him how much you should charge for food! Do you hear me?" Ichigo nodded frantically. "Cause you making someone pay that much for sandwiches is freaking criminal." Tatsuki let the man go and he quickly started bowing to her.

"My name is Ichigo and I apologize greatly for moderately overcharging you for your meal. In compensation, please keep the sandwiches that I have made. Now please excuse me, I think that I need to bring problems valuable customerers were having with their food to management. Good day."

Ichigo quickly folded the stall back up and shove it back into his backpack, not wasting a single second because he needed to get out of there fast. He was a monster in human form who had hunted down and mercilessly slaughtered beasts so he could consume their raw flesh. The thought of having to face this black haired human girl however seemed to scare him even more than fighting a shinigami captain did however. Forget guarding the school, if that girl went there then she seemed more than capable in Ichigo's opinion of taking care of attacking hollows.

With everything put away, Ichigo sped off back torwards Urahara's shop, leaving a slightly curious and very scary human girl behind, wondering how he ha manage to fit the entire food stall into his backpack.

XoXoXoX

**_Whoo! Second chapter done. Next chapter will deal with Ichigo, our arrancar employee, meeting Ishida and friends as they come back home after rescuing Rukia. If you want to know how the invasion went different I won't dedicate a chapter to saying what happened and will instead use flashbacks when I deem them necessary. I may also consider giving a hints of the pairings I have planned, nothing is certain however and the only thing I can tell you for sure is that there isn't going to be any yaoi. Goodnight folks._**


	3. Chapter 3

_I can hardly hwhgwis. Sorry, was just pressing random keys for fun. This chapter is going to be my longest chapter yet. When I write, it takes me an entire day of casual writing and I can pound out around 4000 words a day. This chapter is dialog heavy. Enjoy this chapter._

**_I do not own Bleach._**

XoXoXoX

Running away really wasn't Ichigo's style, but the situation called for it. The girl at the high school put the fear of god in him for some reason. He had torn apart people with his bare hands, but he would do anything in his power to avoid her. When she grabbed him, it reminded him of that time when he was a regular hollow and was almost swallowed whole by a Gillian. Danger zone indeed.

Urahara did not expect Ichigo to walk back into the store this early. He had sent him out thinking he would be gone for the entire day protecting the school and selling sandwiches. He could only assume that Ichigo was back so soon because something went horribly wrong.

Ichigo came practically rushing into the store, he set his bag on the floor, and looked out the window, almost as if he was expecting to be followed. Urahara walked up behind him, "What's wrong Ichigo?"

Ichigo looked behind him and nodded in acknowledgement, then went back to looking out the window while he explained. "Well, I was selling sandwiches, but then my very first customer came up to the stand. She made her order, and then when I told her how much it would cost, she grabbed me and threatened me. I had no choice but to pack everything up and make a run for it. I'm hoping that she didn't follow me."

Urahara almost snorted, "You got scared by a teenage girl complaining about the price of sandwiches. I didn't know that you were afraid of women."

"I'm not afraid of women!" Ichigo shouted indigently, "You should've seen this chick though. It wasn't that she looked or sounded dangerous at all, but she was tough."

"How tough?" Urahara asked curiously.

"I mixed a sliver of killing intent in with my reiatsu and she didn't even seem to notice. Now either she lives in an environment where this happens to her constantly, or she is so tough that she just powered through it."

"What did she look like?"

"She was tallish, flat chest,". Elsewhere in town Tatsuki felt a sudden rush of inexplicable anger. "and had spiky black hair, shoulder length, and it pointed downward. She also has some degree of combat experience, I'm guessing karate based on the combat stance she took when she grabbed me. She also had a larger than average amount of reiatsu"

The description Ichigo gave matched that of Ishida's friend Tatsuki. She was a girl that Urahara had been monitoring recently, like Chad and Orihime, she was showing signs that she was beginning to develop unique powers. She was harmless right now however, and Urahara decided to reassure Ichigo.

"Don't worry my valuable assistant! That was merely a friend of Ishida, she seems fierce, but in reality she is harmless right now."

Ichigo accepted this and then decided to speak up, "You've mentioned this Ishida guy a couple of times now. Who is he?"

Urahara's trademark fan snapped open and he covered his face as he began to explain. "Ishida is the towns residential Quincy. There hadn't been a shingami in town to protect the citizens until Rukia came, and before her Ishida, and his friends who possessed powers, went around and purified the hollows in Karakura Town."

"What's a Quincy?"

"A Quincy is like a clan of spiritually aware humans. They have the ability to manipulate the reiatsu and reishi around them. They use their powers to make weapons made out of pure reiatsu to kill hollows. Until just a couple of years ago, when Quincies killed a hollow, their souls weren't purified, instead the souls were compleatly destroyed. The Quincies doing this over the course of generations upset the balance between plus souls and hollows, thus earning the Quincies the ire of the shinigami. Head captain Yamamoto and the other captains led a mass genocide in order to wipe them out, so they could no longer upset the balance of souls in the world. There were very few survivors and Soul Society has kept tabs on them and their desendents for their entire lives. Recently however, an elderly Quincy found a way to purify hollows instead of eliminating them, this has caused the shingami to stop their observations of the Quincy."

"Sounds just a little harsh doesn't it. Again, reasons like that are why I feel uncomfortable dealing with shinigami. Don't get me wrong, hollows can do a lot worse, and we have, but at least we don't pretend to be paragons of justice and then immediately turn around and wipe out an entire people because we thought it would 'uphold the balance'." Ichigo used air quotes saying the last part. "If hollows were to do something like this, I can tell you exactly how it would go down."

Urahara raised an eyebrow. "Don't let me stop you Ichigo. Tell me, how would hollows have eliminated the Quincy and why."

Ichigo cleared his throat and made himself comfortable. "It would probably start with a Vasto Lorde. It would probably have had an encounter with a Quincy and the Vasto Lorde wouldn't have appreciated that. He would then call for a Low Summit. Then convince the other Vasto Lordes that the Quincies were a danger to them all personally. Then we would open a Gargantua Grande and poured all the hollows necessary to eliminate the Quincies."

"What's a Low Summit?" Urahara interrupted, curious.

Ichigo explained, "A Low Summit is when a Vasto Lorde yells at the top of his lungs that if the other Vasto Lordes don't show up in his territory for a meeting, then he is going to cause problems for everybody else. The Vasto Lordes travel there and basically complain about their problems or declare war over territory. Vasto Lordes claiming territory in Hueco Mundo is important because all Vasto Lordes have the ability to control all of the normal hollows and Gillian in their territories, this means that if Vasto Lordes go to war with each other, it's mass warfare. Entire tracks of land can be destroyed in the process. It's like a freaking civil war in Hueco Mundo, somebody is always fighting somebody."

Having Ichigo describe the power struggles in Hueco Mundo clarified a lot for Urahara. It also revealed to him that Vasto Lordes were not only extremely powerful hollows, they were also all tatcticians on some level. He only had one more question for his employee. "You were a Vast Lorde as well. What is your experience in fighting in these wars."

Ichigo leaned back against a nearby wall. His black and yellow eyes locked onto the ceiling as he reministed about his past.

"There have been over 300 wars that have happened while I was a Vasto Lorde. I have only been involved in 3." Ichigo took a look at Urahara to gauge his reaction, but he was using his fan to cover his face. "I had a smaller amount of territory than other Vasto Lordes, but I also had the reputation as the most bloodthirsty Vasto Lorde. I was known for killing every living thing I came across. This meant that people didn't want to fight me too much. If they tried to declare one of their wars on me, then I would hunt them down and fight them personally, instead of hiding behind a wall of Gillian serving as artillery."

Urahara furrowed his brow. "How bloodthirsty were you?"

"I've mellowed out in the last couple of years, but for the rest of my entire career, the only time I didn't kill everybody I met was I was on my way to a Low Summit. As far as I'm aware, only one other person knows my actual name. At the summits I was only called 'Slaughter', that's how scary I was."

Urahara didn't expect anything less from his new employee. He fully expected the hollow to be a warmonger, and all of his plans involving him took full account that he could lose control of himself and attack everybody around him. Ichigo saying that he wasn't like that anymore however was reassuring to Urahara. It meant that he could now entrust Ichigo with more delicate tasks.

"Talking about the past doesn't really show people to move forward Mr. Cool-Hat Dude. So lets get back on track. Where is Ishida right now?"

"Ishida and his friends are currently infultrating Soul Society right now to rescue their friend Rukia after she was falsely accused of murdering her squad mate Kaien Shiba when a hollow killed him and took his form."

"Ishida must have an army behind him if he expects to tackle the shinigami in Soul Society. I assume you must have helped them because I don't think there is another person in town who can open a spirit gate to Soul Society."

"How very astute of you! I knew the reason you got paid so much was valid!"

Ichigo looked confused behind his mask. "I'm getting paid for my job? How much?"

Urahara snapped his fan shut so that Ichigo could see his smiling face, "It doesn't matter to you Ichigo! With the debt you've accumulated from the gigai and the limiter, you'll never see a single yen of your labours! Well, since selling sandwiches is a bust, just take a broom and sweep up outside. We need the shop to look presentable after all if we are going to attract any customers. Sweep until dark if you please, also, instead of sleeping in a tree tonight, you can sleep in the basement. My treat!"

"Thanks a lot Mr. Cool-Hat Dude." Ichigo said with sincerity.

Glad that he wasn't going have to deal with selling products for the time being, Ichigo gladly took a broom and began sweeping outside. Unknowingly imitating two certain youths that also worked for Urahara.

XoXoXoX

Ichigo had slept in some bad places. He had fallen asleep only to wake up to be surrounded by enemies, hanging upside down, sneaked attacked by assassin hollows who wanted a piece of him (literally), on fire, and just recently rolling downhill at top speeds through shrubs only to stop on a road where he got ran over. Ichigo just accepted that almost every time he fell asleep he was going to wake up in a horrible situation. It surprised him greatly when he woke up and... he was safe.

Skeptical, he decided to play it safe and examine his surroundings. He had fallen asleep on top of one of the numerous boulders strewn across the large landscape that Urahara said was his shop's 'basement'. Ichigo wasn't not paid to question his employer however and didn't ask any questions about it, much to Urahara's disapointment.

The only things sticking out in the basement were his cleaver up against a rock, and Urahara standing in the middle of the training grounds, looking up at the middle of the air where Ichigo could faintly detect reiatsu swirling around.

Ichigo decided that he had had enough sleeping and got up while dusting himself off. He grabbed his zanpakuto and made his way to where Urahara was standing. He saw him approaching, and nodded in greeting.

"Good morning Ichigo."

"Good morning boss. What're you looking at?"

Urahara reached into his coat and handed Ichigo a large piece of folded canvas. Ichigo unfolded it and read what it said, 'Welcome Home'. Behind his mask Ichigo arched an eyebrow and looked at Urahara. He couldn't see Ichigo's expression, but he sure could guess and answered "If my calculations and plot mechanations are correct, then Ishida and his friends have cleared Rukia's name of her crime, Aizen has exposed his betrayal to the rest of the Gotei 13, Ishida has been healed from any wounds he sustained from the rescue attempt, and now they are coming back home." He finished explaining with a smile. "Now take that banner and hang it up somewhere."

Ichigo used some nails and hung it next to the ladder that people had to use to exit the basement. Then he went back to where his boss was standing and stood waiting next to him.

They must have stood there for a good half hour before Ichigo let out a moan of boredom, "When are they gonna get here? It's been practically forever!"

Urahara was occupying himself by swinging his cane around, as he was equally bored, then a devious idea hit him as he remembered that he now had a hollow working for him.

"Listen closely Ichigo and follow my instructions to the letter."

XoXoXoX

Exiting the senkaimon, Ishida was glad that the whole incident involving Soul Society was now over. He was still worried about what that betrayer Aizen had planned, but for now he saw that there was no reason now for him to interfere with shinigami business. Now that the ordeal was over, he just wanted to thank Mr. Urahara for helping them, and go back home to his family mansion. Maybe have one of the maids … no, he couldn't do that. He had someone now that he wanted to be with, he couldn't spoil that relationship by having the maids wash his back for him.

Ishida was broken out of his thoughts however by the sound of Orihime screaming. Snapping himself back to attention, the sight in front of him caused him to pale noticeably.

The entire training arena beneath Urahara's shop was all torn up. There wasn't a single corner of the facility that wasn't damaged in some way, even the artificial sky had changed and it looked like there was a thunderstorm. That wasn't what horrified Ishida however.

Leaning against a nearby rock, Urahara himself was sitting down leaning against it looking at the ceiling, while the gushing wound in his midriff spilled all of his blood onto the floor.

Once Ishida had recovered, he quickly scanned the area hoping that there weren't any enimies nearby, which there wasn't, and grabbed Orihime and began taking her to Urahara knowing that her powers had the potential to save his life. When Orihime got to Urahara she began the process of rejecting the damage done to the shopkeeper while Chad caught up with Ishida.

"What happened here?" The giant teen questioned his friend, thinking that the intellectual Quincy would've come to a conclusion of what had happened much quicker then he had.

Ishida took his time, examining the damage done to the training grounds and Urahara before he answered. "I'm not going to lie, if what I think happened, things aren't looking good at all."

Ishida walked over to a section of wall where there were several holes, gashes, and a very large crater. Rubbing his hand over the damage he continued "The slashes mean that whoever did this were using bladed weapons, this makes me think that shinigami were involved somehow. The crater gives off a reiatsu signiture that is identical to a cero, so hollows were here as well. These other holes however," Ishida held up his hand and curled it up into a fist, before putting it next to one of the holes and showing that they were all vaguely fist shaped, "these holes indicate that someone with immense strength caused them."

"What does this mean?" Chad questioned.

"Based on all the evidence, there are two occurences that are plausible. The first, and least likely, is that Urahara was attacked in separate chronological waves of hollows and shinigami. This is very unlikely however and can be dismissed easily because hollow and shinigami do not share the same goal, and the hollows would've eaten Urahara." Ishida paused to push his glasses up. "That leaves the second option. In Soul Society we witnessed Aizen being transported by Menos. This indicates that he has some degree of control over them. Theoretically he and the other captains who defected with him could have caused all of the damage that we see here along with the hollows he commanded."

Chad was once again impressed by his friend. In school, Ishida had the highest grades in class, and was more than willing to help out his friends with difficult logic problems. Along with his sensing abilities, this was useful to Ishida and his friends when they were tracking hollows.

"What do we do about it now?"

"It would be smart if we wait until Urahara wakes up, then we can…"

Ishida was cut of by a new voice appearing. **"Die. Then you can die."**

Ishida and Chad located the source of the voice. The voice itself sounded like a hollow's so that was what they expected. What they did not expect was a teenager wearing a hollow mask leaning against the walls of the training grounds.

Ishida wanted to dismiss him as just a regular person, but all of the factors suddenly clicked in place. The teen had bright orange spiky hair, and the only thing that his skeletal mask didn't cover were his eyes, which were black with yellow irises. A hollow's eyes. The teen, no, the creature, in front of them gave off hollow reiatsu. He didn't wear a shirt, instead bandages were wrapped around him so he could keep his modesty, except for the center of his chest, where a very discomforting sight could be seen. A hollow hole.

Forgetting that he had a human shape, the individual in front of them gave of all appearances of being a hollow. This meant that as a Quincy, it was his responsibility to attack and purify it.

Without further ado, Ishida raised his hands and summoned his bow. He took half a second to aim before he could fire his arrows… and that was all the time his opponent needed as he covered the ground between them and planted his fist into Ishida's gut, sending him flying.

The flips Ishida had taken in midair had disorientated him and when he rediscovered his center if balance, he saw his foe holding Chad up in the air by his throat, while only using a single hand.

Ishida couldn't afford to waste any more time and he released a salvo of arrows at the hollow. When all of his arrows struck their target there was a large dust explosion. Chad came rolling out and the Quincy archer assumed that his foe had been slain by the barrage he had unleashed. He had after all, never met anything yet that withstand even a single hit by one of his arrows.

Thinking that his enemy was slain, Ishida dismissed his bow and began making his way over to Chad to make sure that he was alright. He was forced to stop however as he was grabbed by his coat and turned around. Not only was the hollow still alive, he was compleatly unharmed and he now held what looked like a giant cleaver as large as he was. Said cleaver's point was aimed at his throat and the hollow spoke once again.

** "Well, that was anti-climatic. I wanted some cooler fight with explosions, beat downs, drunken brawlers, and the sleepy village of Cornwall. What I got instead were two exhausted warriors who couldn't even put up a half decent scuffle, let alone a fight." **The hollows reiatsu changed adruptly, as did his voice, losing the watery echo that hollows possessed. "Oi! Mr. Cool-Hat Dude! I'm done with the introductions."

Ishida was about to question what in the hell the hollow was blathering about, when his surroundings began to waver and change. As if they had turned to steam and were now floating away. When the landscape solidified again the basement looked like it had before Ishida had left.

A slow monotone clapping drew his attention to his right where a compleatly fine and not bloodstained Urahara stood next to Orihime looking concerned and Chad with his hands clenche into fists, but otherwise compleatly fine.

Urahara spoke up. "Welcome back Uyrū! Did my newest employee surprise you! Wasn't it a great idea to attack you when you were relaxed after just coming home again. Aren't you thankful that you gained this valuable combat experience!" Urahara had to very quickly dodge to the left to avoid getting hit by the incoming blue arrow.

"What was that." Ishida asked calmly, his voice in complete contrast with the combat stance he had.

Ichigo walked over and helped his boss back to his feet. "Why would you do such a mean thing Uyrū? I just wanted to slightly punish you for being so slow with a prank that me and Ichigo set up."

Urahara notices that Ishida is still eyeing Ichigo wearily and hadn't lowered his guard at all. Witch was understandable given what he had seen Ichigo do, even if almost all of it was the product of a machine Urahara made that produced low quality illusions. He decided that the air needed to be cleared and indicated for Ichigo to introduce himself. Ichigo raised his hand to get everybody's attention and he began.

"Hello. My name is Ichigo, no last name. I am an arrancar. My likes include hunting hollows, killing hollows, eating hollows, eating things in general, manual labor, and confusing people with my comebacks. My dislikes include finding places to fall asleep, not being able to show people my face, baths, cats, giving cats baths, shinigami fighting me, the Dewey Decimal system, and girls with flat chests and black hair beating me up. My hobbies include stargazing and playwriting. My dream is to find something that satisfies me in my life." Ichigo then let out a bright big friendly smile so that they could see that he was a friendly guy, but it was covered by his mask so they were just confused by his introduction which contradicted with the behavior he had just shown them a few minutes ago.

Chad, surprised everyone, and asked a question. "What's an arrancar?"

Ichigo facefaulted at the fact that no one seemed to even know what he was and brooded about it while Urahara began his explanation of hollow evolution and arrancars to Ishida and friends.

XoXoXoX

_Ya, it took me two days to write about this because I had stuff going on. Next chapter will probably be filler while I struggle with myself to include the bounts or not. Give me some feedback on that please, and also what do you guys think of a Bleach/Dishonored crossover. I'm psyched about that so I'm probably just going to go for it. Have fun folks and see ya next time._


	4. Chapter 4

_This is an intro. You don't have to read it, but it you don't, you'll be magically teleported to the sleepy village of Cornwal and have to farm radishes for the rest of your life. Good Luck With That. (If your failing to get this reference, play the Shivering Isles, look in any crate in Paswall. You will usually find corn and radishes, or at least I did.)_

_**I do not own Bleach.**_

XoXoXoX

Ishida and his friends listened to Urahara's explanation of what an arrancar was. "Hollow powers and Shingami powers are like two rooms in the same house. Souls can only be in one room at once. Occasionally however, there are exceptions and souls break these rules. There are shinigami who walk into the hollow room temporarily, thus earning hollow powers. We call these shinigami vizards, they can form hollow masks on themselves which greatly increase their power. On the flip side of all this, their are hollows who tear the wall separating the two powers down compleatly with brute force and gain shinigami powers. These hollows still display the hunger, masks, and hollow holes common in all hollows, but they gain a human shape. In addition to that, they gain a zanpakuto which seals their powers within it, they can release these powers in similar ways to how shinigami release their zanpakuto." Urahara sipped some tea he had Ichigo lay out for him before he continued. "Arrancars however gain their human emotions back when they are formed. Vizards as well, have been reported throughout history of losing control of their hollow powers and have it possess them, becoming hollows in all but name. You may have doubts about Ichigo, but I can promise you that as long he works for me he is in no way a threat to the safety of Karakura Town. Other individuals like him I cannot vouch for however and should be treated with extreme caution. Does this answer the question you asked Sado-kun?"

Chad nodded his head. Ishida however still had something he wanted to know. "And why, might I ask, would you have a hollow working for you, albeit a hollow with some human tendencies?"

Ichigo heard this, as he had snuck up behind Ishida to listen in on their conversation, and decided now would be another perfect oppurtunity to prove that he was an appropriate member of society by politely denying Ishida's statement, they would be impressed by him, and would be allowed to stay so that he could be happy like Ishida and his friends were. He reached over and tapped Uryū on the shoulder to get his attention.

From Ishida's perpspective, when he turned around he saw the arrancar's skull mask right in his face, thus startling him more than he would like to admit as he let out a shriek that wouldn't be uncommon if it was heard from a girl. Ishida coughed to try and cover his embarrassment and as he was about to start belittling the hollow for sneaking up on him, Ichigo opened his mouth and spoke first, and with the subtlety of an atomic explosion, "Ishida, I have only known you for less than an hour. And I have finally gathered my first impression of you, which is… you need to man up. That sounded like a girl seeing a rat for craps sakes!"

Ishida was by no means a snob. Never in his life would be admit that his family was actually higher class as they came from old money. He never used this influence in school as he saw that acting better than everyone else because of his family's history, as Rukia's brother Byakuya had, would make him a prick. This wouldn't ever make him friends, but this arrancar rubbed him the compleatly wrong way and he honestly didn't want to be friends with this hollow, so he pulled the "I'm better than you" card out.

Ishida pushed up his glasses. "A low born hollow commener like yourself should not speak to someone of my social standing in such a manner. Instead of acting like a dunce, you should be grateful that I have even graced the room you are in with my presence. Now apologize."

Everyone in the room blinked, surprised at the unusually harsh words Ishida had used, except for Ichigo and Ishida, who had locked eyes and not even moved. It took Ichigo three tense filled seconds before he replied, "You just pulled every word you just said out of your ass right now didn't you." It was not a question, Ichigo had straight out said that what Ishida said was nonsense.

With a sinking feeling, Ishida realized that he would lose any argument he would have with the arrancar tonight as he was drained from having to traverse the space between worlds. He decided it was time to cut his loses and leave as he had confirmed that Ichigo would not be a threat to the town on Urahara's promise.

"I don't have to take this." He said as arrogantly as be could, hoping that Ichigo would leave him alone. "Let's get going back to our homes guys. We still have school going on and we will need a full nights sleep if we are to go back to school and reconfigure our patrols tomorrow." Ishida got up and left without saying anything else.

Chad bowed to Urahara to show thanks for the help he had given them and followed the Quincy outside.

Orihime took her time saying thank you to Urahara before she started walking out the door as her friends had. She stopped however and nervously turned around torwards Ichigo and gave a short bow, "Please forgive Ishida Ichigo-san. He is tired right now and truly didn't mean the things he said right then."

Ichigo was touched by this girl. She had saw her friend's rude behavior and saw fit to apologize to him, even though he was a hollow, one of the creatures that she and her friends hunted in order to keep their home safe. He decided to reassure her that all was forgiven and gave a friendly smile and a wink.

Orihime however only saw the wink because of Ichigo's mask and compleatly misinterpreted it. She saw the hollow winking as a sign that he had already came up with some plan to enact revenge against her friend and that there was nothing she could do about it. In Orihime's mind there was fire and Ichigo was giving off maniacal laughter while only the 5 colored Chappys of justice could hope to stop him… Orihime had a messed up mind. Anyways she visibly blanched and followed Sado out the door.

Ichigo walked to the door after they had left and locked the shop's door as he saw that it was closing time. Then he turned torwards his employer and decided to share his thoughts. "I don't know about you, but I think I just made three new friends!"

Excited, Ichigo began talking animatedly about all the stuff he could do now that he actually had people to talk to. He was so happy that Urahara couldn't bring himself to tell Ichigo that the former ryokas didn't like him and settled that this would soon become clear to Ichigo.

In Ichigo's mind, all he had to worry about were short flat chested girls with black hair, and what he would say to his new friends tomorrow after he snuck into their school to say hello.

XoXoXoX

New Filler Arc:  
Is This Package For You?  
Infiltrate Quincy Manor!

XoXoXoX

_This chapter is really short, but I need it to be because I'm going to use this chapter as a stepping stone for launching my own custom story arc. I don't want to spoil what will happen, but I will say this, it involves ninja maids and a pirate ship._

_To answer concerns concerning the bounts I mentioned, if I were to involve the bounts, then the story arc would be compleatly different as the characters have some powers that they didn't have in cannon and I hate the bount arc and would take it upon myself to actually make it decent plot wise. The only reason that I would add it is because I could springboard the connection I'm seeing between bounts and fullbringers, and the arc would take up the plot space I need for character development. Enjoy this short pre-arc chapter, and goodnight folks._


End file.
